Month: July 2017

Last time I posted about how I finally built my gaming PC, but one cannot truly call themselves a PC gamer and by extension a member of the PC Master Race until they have officially completed a game on their rig. Today I do declare my official membership.

I thought it was appropriate to bridge the gap between my pre-Master Race life as a gamer with my newfound gloriousness. So I decided that instead of my initially planned The Witcher 2 as my first PC game on my rig I would complete a game that I had started on my laptop but never finished. I chose Magrunner: Dark Pulse (2013) developed by Frogwares.

I originally tried Magrunner back in 2013 as a demo on PS3. I very much enjoyed the demo. It was like Portal but with magnets. As a fan of level based puzzlers like Portal, I was very interested in playing through the whole game. But I did not want to pay the price they were charging on PS3. I can’t remember the exact price but currently on the PSN store it’s listed as $10 so let’s go with that because I defintely wouldn’t have paid that price. Months later the game was on sale on GOG.com for less than $5. I happily bought it and started it soon after.

I was happy playing Magrunner on my laptop. It wasn’t running perfectly but it was certainly playable. I did not regret the purchase and everything was going quite well. Then I got stuck. There are three types of getting stuck in a game. Not knowing what to do. Not being able to do something. And not being able to do something because of hardware. Often people make the excuse that they are experiencing the third scenario when really they’re experiencing the second. With the advent of YouTube, the first scenario ceased to be a valid reason to get stuck in any game for an extended period of time. I was experiencing the third scenario. This was because my gamepad was not properly syncing to my laptop so I had to program it by hand with MotionJoy to pretend to be a mouse. But the settings were not perfect. I also had minor lag because of a lack of RAM.

Up until the point where I actually did get stuck, these hardware issues were not game breaking. I had to work harder, but the game never got impossible. Then I got to a puzzle that required the highest level of accuracy and speed. Having now completed the game, I will still hold that this particular puzzle was the hardest to execute in the game. It wasn’t the hardest to solve, but actually do it was much hard. I tried and I tried and I tried, but was never able to succeed. You are required to quickly shoot three targets while riding a moving platform in hopes of getting through the door on the other side within the time limit. It was a horrible experience. I just couldn’t do it with my system. Eventually I gave up.

Three years after that happened I finally built a PC and my gamepad works properly. As does my mouse, which I had to switch to occasionally while playing. I beat that puzzle I was stuck on so long in under five minutes. I went on to beat the rest of the game soon after.

I’m so thankful that I was finally able to complete that game. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as gaming redemption. I have completed Magrunner: Dark Pulse and can now officially call my self a PC gamer. My rig has been christened. No longer will I be limited by technical limitations. No longer will I have to miss out on betas because my system can’t run them. Now I can and shall go on to play and beat countless PC games.

As always, thanks for reading. Please take the time to follow my blog, leave a comment, and check out some of my other channels if you enjoyed what you read.

I have been a proud console peasant for the bulk of my life. I like console games. I like controllers. I like plug and play technology. And as a person who genuinely hates FPS, MOBA, and MMO type games, there have very few PC exclusives that I’ve even wanted to play. The only games on PC I’ve really wanted to play in the last decade have been XBOX titles, since I don’t have one, retro games, and console games I could get much cheaper on PC.

I was afraid to build a PC. I knew all the reasons why people built them. I knew all the benefits of building one. But I was never really motivated. I had a crappy laptop that couldn’t run anything past small indie titles and really old ports/ROMs and that was enough for me. Sure there were disappointing moments such as when I would get beta codes for PC and not be able to play them. But for the most part I was happy with my console peasantry.

I first decided that I was going to build a PC in the summer of 2015. I remember the exact moment that I made this decision. I had just beaten The Witcher. I had never heard of the series prior to that summer but the special editions of both 1 & 2 were on sale on GOG and a friend demanded that I buy them. I was reluctant, but this friend guaranteed that I would love them. I purchased them and he was absolutely right. I played The Witcher and it was amazing. Even with the horrible controls in that first game, it was still a phenomenal plot based gaming experience. I was so impressed by the game that I immediately started up the second one. I was able to play the first game on my laptop so I assumed that I could run the second one. Sadly this was not the case. My laptop made it through the opening cinematic and then the game just sputtered to the point of unplayability. I even set the game to the minimum settings and it still wouldn’t run for me.

The Witcher 2 was ported to XBOX 360 but not PS3. I hadn’t owned an XBOX 360 for years and I wasn’t about to go buy one just to play this one out of date game. It was at this very moment that I decided to build a PC. After literally two years of saving, research, and planning, I finally built a powerful gaming rig that will allow me to play The Witcher 2. I built the highest end PC I could afford. It’s funny because what I needed to play the game I built for doesn’t compare to what I ultimately built. But I have no regrets and I write this blog post from my new gaming PC. The first PC I ever built for personal use.

Thank you to everyone who helped me with this endeavor through recommendations, links, guides, and encouragement that helped bring this system to life.

My Specs:

Case – Cooler Master COSMOS II

Motherboard – MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon

GPU – Gigabyte GTX 1080 (AIO Liquid Cooled)

CPU – I7-6800K

CPU Cooler – Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 Pro

RAM – 32 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000

PSU – Super Flower Leadex 1000w Platinum

Keyboard – ASUS ROG Claymore

Mouse – ASUS ROG Spatha

Monitor – ASUS ROG Swift PG278

Sound System – Logitech Z623

Microphone – Audio-Technica AT2020USB+

Camera – Logitech C920

Capture Card – Elgato HD60 Pro

SSD – SanDisk Ultra II 480GB

HDD

3 x Toshiba 7200RPM 3TB

2 x Seagate Firecuda 2TB

1.5 TB random other HDDs

Let the gaming begin!

As always, thanks for reading. Please take the time to follow my blog, leave a comment, and check out some of my other channels if you enjoyed what you read.

This week I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming and Transformers: The Last Knight. I actually wrote reviews for both but the Transformers one got deleted because of a bug and I was not in the mood to rewrite an entire review. So here’s the introduction for my review of Spider-Man: Homecoming:

Spider-Man: Homecoming was an interesting experience. The best way to describe it is that it’s really two different films in one. It’s one part comic book film and one part high school drama.

Like this:

I was in the hospital last week. I was fine and suddenly I had pain in my gums. I’m one of those people who grew up without healthcare so I never go to the doctor for things unless absolutely necessary. The fact that I went to the dentist the next day shows just how painful it really was. But at no point was I genuinely worried about my safety. They told me I had a severe infection and that I had to have a tooth pulled, but that it could be replaced with an implant. At my age, this news didn’t trouble me because the tooth in question had a long history of troubles going all the way back to a skateboarding accident from my childhood. This wouldn’t even be the first time this tooth had left my mouth, if that tells you anything. Really I was just happy to know that the reason I was having pain was obvious and that it could be easily treated and that I could get a replacement tooth fairly easily. And since I no longer live in the United States, I could get this all fixed affordably as well. I was supposed to have the tooth removed a mere three days after that initial visit to the dentist. They gave me some pain killers and said just hold out till the surgery and then the pain will all be gone. I was happy with this situation. Less than 10 hours later I was in the hospital suffering from a high fever brought on by the infection.

I’m ok now. I spent more than two days in the hospital and missed my appointment to remove the tooth, but by the time you read this I will have not only been released from the hospital but also had the tooth removed, returned to work, and be on the road to getting my implant. I’m very fortunate to have had such an easy hospitalization. That was my first and hopefully only time I’ll ever be hospitalized for an extended period of time. But this experience, however mild it was compared to the countless other people who have had the misfortune of being hospitalized, really gave me some perspective. Without trying to sound cliché, I realized that life is short. And more importantly, I realized just how much of it I’ve been wasting trying to please other people.

I started this blog and accompanying YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter channels/accounts almost four years ago. To date I have published a blog post, almost always multiple single spaced pages, every week. I’ve published more than 100 reviews for several platforms for multiple websites. I’ve tweeted every day, multiple times a day, for a grand total of more than 48K tweets. I’ve posted more than 300 videos, most of which are serious full length gameplay episodes. All that is to say that I’ve put a lot into gaming related content creation, and that’s not a bad thing. But as a man on the wrong side of 25, or even 27, I have spent way too much time doing things for the benefit of other people and as a consequence have taken away from my own personal enjoyment and goals. That’s gonna change immediately.

I take schedules and commitments very seriously. That’s why I’ve made sure to publish content on the schedule that I have since November of 2013 with a nearly flawless record. But to this day I gain no actual returns from all this content creation. I have no Patreon supporters, my following on my blog, YouTube, and Twitch channel are laughable considering the amount of time I’ve put in, and to this day I’ve never received a single donation of any kind as a direct result of my content creation, with the possible exception of Twitter and never in monetary form. This is fine. I’m fortunate enough to have a real job in this economy that allows me to still be able to purchase video games and create content without requiring any returns from my content creation. Do I wish I made money for all the hard work I put in? Of course. Can I live without it? I have for the last four years. While it’s sad to not be recognized for all my content with any form of monetary compensation, it also allows me a great deal of freedom compared to other content creators who do make money for their work. I can make whatever changes I want whenever I want and the repercussions are at best non-existent or at worst inconsequential. I may lose a few followers here and there, but I never had that many to begin with. So unlike content creators who are bound to their following for survival, I can literally do whatever I want. And my recent hospital experience showed me that what I want is less unpaid responsibilities and more time to pursue my own personal goals.

It’s always been my dream to write a novel. I’ve done all the ground work for this project including writing a 200 page treatment and six page detailed chapter outline. I’m serious about this project but have never been able to make the time for it until now. I have so many unfinished and unplayed games in my backlog. I just built a new gaming PC and haven’t even loaded up a single game yet due to lack of time. I also have a stack of books I’ve bought in the last year that I have yet to read. These are just some of the things I’d like to do but haven’t been able to make time for. So effective immediately I’m shifting gears in my life. Content creation will no longer be treated like a job or responsibility. It will now be completely for fun. What this means is no more strictly adhered to schedule of content creation. If I want to write a blog post, I will. If I want to publish a video, I will. If I want to stream, I will. And if I’m not in the mood for whatever reason or just didn’t have the time or wasn’t inspired to make content in a particular week, then I won’t. No more guaranteed weekly posts. That doesn’t necessarily mean content won’t be published on a weekly basis. It simply means that I will no longer hold myself to that standard. If I genuinely want to create content at that frequency then I will. And if I’m not in the mood to publish something in a given week then I won’t.

I want to be clear that this is not me declaring the end of this blog or any of my related content outlets. I have put too much time and effort into this project to just throw it all away and I’m also deeply entrenched into the gaming community. I literally could not stop creating content if I wanted to. Especially now that I have a beast of a rig that will allow me to record 1080p 60 FPS gameplay vids and a high quality microphone to capture commentary. If anything I’ll be making YouTube videos and streaming more than ever before. And honestly I can’t see the gaming industry and community just magically fixing all its current problems and never having any more, so there will always be a reason for me to post on this blog. Not to mention the fact that I genuinely love Twitter. I just want to make content solely from interest and desire rather than responsibility from here on out. Or at least until such time as content creation becomes a real paid job that warrants me taking it as seriously as I have for more than three and half years.

If any of this makes you unhappy, I’m genuinely sorry. It was not my intention to disappoint any of my loyal readers, subscribers, or followers. But I hope you can at least understand my position and support my desire to pursue my personal goals in order to live a more fulfilling life. Thank you for reading and for your support past, present, and/or future.

*Also, from now on I’m not just limiting this blog to gaming. Movies and TV are fair game from now on as well since the communities and my interests in those subjects are very much intertwined.

As always, thanks for reading. Please take the time to follow my blog, leave a comment, and check out some of my other channels if you enjoyed what you read.